The present invention relates to machines used in performing railway maintenance. More particularly, the present invention relates to machines for removing rail anchors from railways.
Conventional railroad tracks generally comprise two rails secured to a plurality of ties by rail fasteners. Rail fasteners can be so-called cut spikes which are driven through tie plate apertures into the wooden railroad ties, or other alternative fasteners configured to perform the same function.
Rail anchors are often used to avoid longitudinal displacement of the rails relative to the ties. The rail anchors, which are generally C-shaped, and include a central blade portion bordered by two clip-bearing ends, are typically attached to the rail base on each side of a tie. Before a tie held in place by the anchor is replaced, the anchor must be detached from the rail. Previously, anchor removal was performed by operators manually hammering the anchors out of their engagement with the rail base.
More recently, rail maintenance machines have been built for detaching rail anchors, to ease the physical burden of manually detaching each anchor. The machines are designed to ride on the rails and are provided with reciprocating workheads for detaching the rail anchors. An operator rides on the machine and is responsible for positioning the workheads over the rail anchors. Once the workheads are in place, the operator initiates the detaching process.
Conventional automatic anchor removing workheads include a hammer arranged to press against the rail anchor with sufficient force to detach it from the rail. When the machine is moved between rail anchors, the workheads are placed in an up position, away from the ties and rails.
However, the accuracy of such machines has been limited. Often the workheads are not properly positioned and the rail anchors do not properly detach. Therefore, the workhead must be re-positioned and the detaching process must be rerun, detracting from the efficiency of the operation.
Furthermore, the conventional workheads are provided with a hammer shape which has a tendency to slip or slide off the rail anchors during the detaching process, again resulting in rail anchors which are not properly detached.
In conventional designs, time is also wasted positioning the workheads between the up and down positions. Because the workheads must be in the up position when the machine is moving, the operator must wait for this repositioning to take place after each rail anchor is removed.
Thus, there is a need for a machine which can automatically and reliably remove rail anchors from rails, thus increasing the amount of work that can be performed by an operator during a work day.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved device which can automatically remove rail anchors from rails without manual handling.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an improved rail anchor removing device which can be more accurately positioned over the rail anchors, reducing the number of faulty detaching attempts.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide an improved rail anchor removing device which reduces the amount of slippage that occurs during the detaching process, also reducing the number of faulty detaching attempts.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an improved rail anchor removing device in which the amount of time spent positioning the workhead between a down and up position is reduced.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide an improved rail anchor removing device which can be used with existing railway maintenance machines.
Other features and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.